


With the Lights Out and the Night Inside

by Lamia of the Dark (VisceraNight)



Series: In the Grey of the Morning [2]
Category: Hellsing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 23:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14758707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VisceraNight/pseuds/Lamia%20of%20the%20Dark
Summary: Walter returns from a mission to find that the Hellsing family no longer exists and Alucard is gone.





	With the Lights Out and the Night Inside

~ With the Lights Out and the Night Inside ~

The manor is dark when Walter returns. He finds it odd that not a single light burns in any of the windows, but not entirely suspicious. It is only early evening, after all, and there is still enough sunlight that those inside might not find it necessary to turn a lamp on quite yet.

When he enters the house, the air is still.

 _I must be getting old_ , he thinks bitterly to himself.  _I should know to trust my instincts by now_.

Because something is definitely wrong here. He readies his wires as he carefully creeps further into the manor.

 _What happened while I was gone?_  he wonders as he wanders through the empty house.  _Where are the soldiers? Where are the servants?_

There isn't another living soul anywhere in the house. Yet, strangely, nothing else seems to have been disturbed.

It isn't until he reaches the soldiers' barracks and finds the walls streaked with blood - still tacky, he notes - but no bodies anywhere in sight, that he realizes this must be Alucard's doing.

His first thought upon this realization is  _Why would Alucard even have been woken up? Richard wouldn't be stupid enough to do that, would he?_  His second thought is  _Of course Richard **would**  be stupid enough to do that_.

Walter checks the rest of the manor. Not a living person or a single corpse is anywhere to be found. Several bedrooms in the domestic staff's living quarters seem to have been ransacked, valuables and personal items appear to have been grabbed in a hurry, and he says a silent prayer that those who had time to flee were actually able to escape the vampire's bloodthirsty rampage.

The basement is the last place Walter looks. By this point, he is not at all surprised by what he finds. Alucard's coffin is gone. The cell is open, its walls and floor and even the  _ceiling_  liberally splattered with blood, vacant but for Richard's corpse - apparently the one thing the vampire would not deign to eat.

While he may not have cared for the man himself, Walter kneels to close the eyes of Richard Hellsing's corpse, to let him rest in peace. And there, beside the body, he spots a torn scrap of bloodstained blue ribbon to which is pinned a small silver cross.

 _Integra_.

Without thinking, he reaches out and picks up the cross. Although he hadn't consciously realized it, until this moment Walter had been holding out hope that the child had survived, that she'd been in the company of those who fled. But now that hope is gone, for here in his hand is the proof that she did  _not_.

The monster had slaughtered his keepers, freeing himself of his bonds, and fled.

Walter stands, the cross still clutched in his hand. He knows what must be done now. He will have to contact the Round Table and let them know of this development. And then... then it will be time to unseal the long-neglected Dark Arts Laboratory which is also housed in this very basement.

He will need to create a new weapon - one capable of putting Alucard down once and for all.

~end~


End file.
